TRENCH

                    by Sarah León 

I've been meaning to tell you
this land it's been failing us

exactly how it promised it would.
There is no time for much

besides the work of the echo
in the dusty chamber someone less

naive than me called me into
once, and I stayed. The use

of my life is a sure thing. The use of my life
is a sure thing. The flowers I was charged

to send to the dead and to their loved ones,
even my self, full awash. All this time

a small brush of fire in the city. It all makes sense
now, I suppose. You're meant this

loss of shadow, loss of sun
smut of distance, cross of light.

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photo by Hsien Chong Tan

​Sarah León lives in Seattle, WA. Her poems have appeared in Salt Hill Journal, City Arts Magazine, ILK, Public Pool, and Forklift, Ohio, among others. She recently received a Grant LAB award from ARTISTS UP, an experimental   program designed to remove barriers for historically under-represented artists in Washington State. She is from Arizona.